David Smith the Deputy Chief Executive of Echelon
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What challenges does the data centre industry face in Ireland?
Breakfast Business with Enterprise Ireland on Newstalk. Over the weekend, one of Ireland's youngest and arguably most successful businessmen, John Collison, opined passionately about Ireland's inability to get big things built and how quangos and nimbies have stymied growth. One sector which knows a bit about objections is the data centre industry. My next guest is building a large one in Arklow as we speak and hoping to build something even bigger in Waterford. except they want to do so by supporting rather than drawing upon the electricity grid. And David Smith is the Deputy Chief Executive of Echelon and is sitting in front of me. Good morning, David.
Hi, Joe.
Great to be here. Tell us how data centres can support the grid rather than drawing upon it.
I think it's a great question, Joe, and I think the debate's been quite narrow so far. So the real question is, how do we make this sustainable and how do we make it additive to national infrastructure? And how we are doing that is through a couple of different pillars. So one is regionalization. So we're developing these assets in parts of the country that aren't under as much pressure from an infrastructure perspective.
How do data centres support the electricity grid?
Non-urban environments.
Non-urban environments. We're doing it in a way which contributes to these regional economies, including renewal of brownfield assets. And we're also doing it in a way which is additive to our national infrastructure and policy goals around things like renewables. We can't have a 100% renewable grid tomorrow. We need to build the transition assets. We need to build the battery storage assets to enable that over time. And that's what we're doing at Echelon.
Okay, so give us an example of what you're doing to contribute. So you mentioned battery storage. Solar panels, do you have them on site as well?
So we've got a range of technologies across our assets. So if I look at our asset in Arklow. Which is underway. which is underway today.
What innovative technologies are being used in Echelon's projects?
That's an asset which is going to create a 4.5 billion euro economic impact to that area. 4.5 thousand jobs during construction and 1,100 long-term jobs. It's an asset where we are building our own on-site energy generation assets and they're going to be powered not by diesel but by HVO by a hydro treated vegetable oil exactly Joe and what we're doing there is we've also entered into a joint venture to jointly develop infrastructure assets with an offshore wind farm so we're creating the investment case in this part of the country for renewable infrastructure investment. And that's what the country needs today. It needs to use the data centre sector, which is the backbone not of just today's economy, but also tomorrow's economy, to help meet those policy goals.
Now tell us more about your plans, which are quite substantive, for Kilmeaden in the old cheesemaking factory in Waterford.
Yeah, Kilmeaden's a great example of what we are all about. It's about this sustainable data centre development. It's about finding parts of the country which aren't constrained from a grid perspective, and it's about working to create renewal in those local economies. So we are in planning today for 135 megawatts of capacity in Kilmeaden. We're also speaking about a joint venture there, which will develop on-site energy infrastructure. And it's that integration of energy infrastructure with data centers, which is so important for the business case going forward, to also meet those goals around renewable energy. But we're also working with a housing provider down there to build housing as well.
How does Echelon plan to contribute to local economies?
So data centers, renewable energy, and housing all on the same site? Correct. Wow. Okay. And do you think that might be a model for how this thing goes forward?
We think it's a great model for how data centers should be developed going forward. Antishok himself called our R-Cloud project the example project for sustainable data center development.
Yeah.
It's about having that local impact on the economy. These pieces of infrastructure are some of the largest private capital projects in the country and internationally.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What challenges does the data centre industry face in Ireland?
0:01–1:08
2
How do data centres support the electricity grid?
1:08–1:50
3
What innovative technologies are being used in Echelon's projects?
1:50–3:27
4
How does Echelon plan to contribute to local economies?
3:27–4:21
5
What are the sustainability goals for the Kilmeaden development?
4:21–5:44
6
How does Echelon address community concerns about data centres?
5:44–6:57
7
What is the future of data centres in Ireland and their economic impact?
6:57–7:12